Water transfers its dynamic forces to the surrounding shoreline or to the bottom of a body of water whenever currents or wave movements occur. Particles within water beds and shorelines are carried away and deposited elsewhere, resulting in sedimentation and erosion.
Attempts to halt sedimentation and erosion have thus far utilized construction materials to form pilings, retaining walls and sheet pilings. These were the elements of choice for stabilizing shapes and positions of ocean, lake and river shorelines. However, such construction elements used alone were neither in harmony with nature nor long-lived.
In the more recent past some efforts were made to utilize seeds for stabilizing embankments along dams and shorelines. However, germination could only occur during certain seasons of the year and only under the most favorable conditions. Such seeds rarely germinated in sufficient numbers to provide reliable vegetative growth.
What is needed is an approach for stabilizing and protecting shorelines that would use ecologically compatible vegetative growth with structurally reinforcing construction materials in a variety of arrangements to accommodate different topographies.